On Being an Oppressed White Male

[Oleg Bach]

I don't think this is the case at all. Most of the time when I see young people walking down the street they are the ones who step out of the way to make room for others, if needed. That's certainly what I do and I'm a "young white man".

A typical white person eats hundred dollar lunches? Sorry but what planet are you from? I don't even have a clue where the heck I could go where I could spend $100 on lunch. However, if someone is enjoying an expensive meal in the middle of the day, why should they worry about you and your can of beans? They earned (or inherited) their wealth and have every right to enjoy it in whatever way they deem appropriate. Neither you nor anyone else is entitled to it.

MOST of the people you are talking about are finacially compliant corporate types who got their jobs through the anglo web of neputism. They are out of touch with reality...in their own nation and in the world. AS for their jobs - in the tech era..no one really contributes to wealth creation - real wealth..to sit at a computer and exchange information back and forth creates nothing - some one has to actually use their hands to create wealth - wealth is food production - shelter - clothing - real culture production that enhances and improves the human condition.

The young males and females that are privledged that I meet through my adult children are a strange bunch - they are not family orientated..they are sexual deviates - and dope is important to them - it will not take long but the rule of the "white male" will soon fade. The liberalism that their parents inflicted on society to subjugate other - has back fired and now their own children are conditioned like dogs - arrogant dogs but dogs none the less.

[Natchuck]

That video is freaking hilarious, thanks for posting. Its so true. Being a young white male and living in the country that i do is freaking awesome. I mean i really hit the jackpot baby!

You're right! And being an older white male is pretty damn good too.

[Oleg Bach]

You're right! And being an older white male is pretty damn good too.

Okay I admit when I walk down the street being an older in the know white male - those tiny little immigrants do look upon us as the ruling class - but we better get our birth rate up or we will be internally displaced from this position of authorship..perhaps this is why Harper is not big on abortion - why kill our own kids and import the brats of others - not wise.

[August1991]

AW, Bloodyminded (and anyone else who cares about this), let me explain my point of view.

No one favours higher taxes for people who work more. I know you will find this hard to believe, but many, many people work extremely hard for very little money.

So your assertion is wrong.

I find it difficult to believe you didn't know it was wrong as you were writing it, but maybe....

I think we disagree on the meaning of "work hard". Digging a hole in the ground and filling it up again may be "hard work" to you - but to me, it's work of no value. As a first general rule, the value of something is what someone else is prepared to pay for it - and that includes "hard work".

But AW helpfully steps in and makes the following point:

Who says the people with higher incomes "work more?" People with lower incomes sometimes work two jobs, 60 hour weeks, for less pay than others who work 40 hour, or even 30 hour, weeks. "Low income" isn't synonymous with "less work" by any means.

So, I'll use AW's definition of "hard work".

By what logic of fairness should someone who works 60 hour weeks not only pay more taxes than someone who works 20 hours, but the person working two jobs/overtime pays a higher rate of taxation.

IOW, if you work 20 hours a week, you pay,say, 10% of your income in tax. If you work 60 hours, you pay, say, 20%. What's fair in that?

I think that we can agree that if Person A works 60 hours at minimum wage and Person B works 20 hours at minimum wage, then Person A is "working harder" than Person B - but we tax Person A more, progressively so.

Uh, no one favours higher taxes for people who work more? Then why do we have progressive taxation? Why do people with low incomes pay little or no tax while people with high incomes pay almost half of their income in tax?

My suggestion was to tax people's attributes (luck of the draw) and not their efforts. That would seem more fair, no?

For example, people with blue eyes would pay a higher tax than people with brown eyes. Tall people would pay more tax than short people. Some study

So, in effect, our tax system does in general tax tall people more than short people.

That doesn't even begin to make sense. For the life of me, I don't get where you're coming from.

I'll try again.

If we wanted to create a more "fair" or equitable world, it seems to me that we should tax people who, by the luck of birth, happen to have advantages that other people don't have. This form of taxation has that advantage that it wouldn't discourage anyone from achieving their potential.

If you are born intelligent, blonde, tall, blue-eyed, thin and with clear white skin, then you are lucky. (If you don't like this example, consider the luck of Tiger Woods or any other sports person. He was born with a natural talent for golf.)

I think fairness would dictate that we tax such luck.

-----

Who would choose to have Brad Pitt's piece of the pie (and all that entails)?

A lot of people. Most people, I dare say.

I'm not so certain. I had the opportunity to work alongside well-known politicians and I quickly decided that I would never trade my anonymity for their face recognition - whatever benefit that fame procures. But I suspect that you are right, AW. Most people would prefer to be Brad Pitt or Angelina Jpolie.

(BTW, I enjoyed the movie Notting Hill but I kept thinking that if I were the Hugh Grant character, I would have run away from the Hollywood starlet. Who needs such notoriety in their life?)

I know for certain however that I would not want to trade my lot in life with a woman in Saudi Arabia.

Nor would I; but that's a completely different issue than the question you originally raised.

And this question is precisely the issue at hand.

If we are to have some criteria for fairness, it should surely be this: Are you willing to trade your lot in life for what the other person has? (That's the sense of fairness in its raw form that anyone who cuts chocolate cake at a children' party aims to achieve.)

I would be willing to bet that few "oppressed males" would be willing to escape their so-called oppression by trading lives with a Saudi princess, or even a typical North American female.

IOW, I think this claim to being an "Oppressed White Male" is bogus.

Edited May 15, 2010 by August1991

[Bonam]

If we wanted to create a more "fair" or equitable world, it seems to me that we should tax people who, by the luck of birth, happen to have advantages that other people don't have. This form of taxation has that advantage that it wouldn't discourage anyone from achieving their potential.

If you are born intelligent, blonde, tall, blue-eyed, thin and with clear white skin, then you are lucky. (If you don't like this example, consider the luck of Tiger Woods or any other sports person. He was born with a natural talent for golf.)

I think fairness would dictate that we tax such luck.

When you first mentioned this I thought you were being sarcastic or making a joke. However you've repeated it a number of times now. Are you actually seriously promoting this "idea"?

[Guest American Woman]

Who would choose to have Brad Pitt's piece of the pie (and all that entails)?

A lot of people. Most people, I dare say.

I'm not so certain. I had the opportunity to work alongside well-known politicians and I quickly decided that I would never trade my anonymity for their face recognition - whatever benefit that fame procures. But I suspect that you are right, AW. Most people would prefer to be Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie.

Oooops! I didn't reread my response, and my post that you quoted does not say what I had intended. I meant to say "A lot of people wouldn't. Most people, I dare say."

I don't think most people would want to trade places with them. I sure wouldn't. I agree with not wanting the public recognition, but I also like my life and wouldn't want to trade places with anyone. That was really my point.

[kimmy]

I'll try again.

If we wanted to create a more "fair" or equitable world, it seems to me that we should tax people who, by the luck of birth, happen to have advantages that other people don't have. This form of taxation has that advantage that it wouldn't discourage anyone from achieving their potential.

If you are born intelligent, blonde, tall, blue-eyed, thin and with clear white skin, then you are lucky. (If you don't like this example, consider the luck of Tiger Woods or any other sports person. He was born with a natural talent for golf.)

I think fairness would dictate that we tax such luck.

I assume your proposal is intended as satire. It illustrates a point. One's success in life-- material success, at least, not overall happiness-- might be influenced to some degree by race or gender. But it's influenced by a lot of other factors too, and most of them are hard to quantify.

I've said before that I think competent parenting is probably the biggest advantage a child can have. Coming from a financially stable family. Possibly having siblings or not having siblings or some combination of siblings. Physical health. Mental health. Having an outgoing, aggressive, confident personality is probably a huge advantage. Coming from an area that has better schools, or worse schools. Having the right, or wrong, teacher influence you. Having the right, or wrong, classmates, or getting mixed up with the right, or wrong, crowd at school. Having the right, or wrong, social influences in your neighborhood. Being victimized in some way as a child probably has a dramatic affect on where your life heads. There's probably an endless number of things you could look at.

There's a huge number of possibilities that could influence a person's chances for success in life... and to somehow decide that someone is "priveleged" based on just two-- race and gender-- is pretty comical.

-k

[Argus]

By what logic of fairness should someone who works 60 hour weeks not only pay more taxes than someone who works 20 hours, but the person working two jobs/overtime pays a higher rate of taxation.

IOW, if you work 20 hours a week, you pay,say, 10% of your income in tax. If you work 60 hours, you pay, say, 20%. What's fair in that?

I think that we can agree that if Person A works 60 hours at minimum wage and Person B works 20 hours at minimum wage, then Person A is "working harder" than Person B - but we tax Person A more, progressively so.

I have to say I've never considered it before, but now that you bring it up I think that a person who works more than 40hrs a week ought to be taxed differently (at a lower rate) on their additional worked hours. The tax system only looks at total earnings, and I think it would be farier to take into consideration that someone might be working a second job and that it would not be fair to increase their taxes because of that.

[bloodyminded]

AW, Bloodyminded (and anyone else who cares about this), let me explain my point of view.

I think we disagree on the meaning of "work hard". Digging a hole in the ground and filling it up again may be "hard work" to you - but to me, it's work of no value. As a first general rule, the value of something is what someone else is prepared to pay for it - and that includes "hard work".

Yes, but I wasn't talking about jobs that do not exist. I was referring to actual work.

And in fact, just to play along...digging and filling in holes is extremely hard work. A lot harder than, say, banking, trading, investing, or being CEO of PepsiCo.

At any rate, people work very, very hard for relatively little remuneration. And whatever "value" you personally place on the work has no bearing--none whatsoever--on whether or not they are "working hard."

[Remiel]

I have to say I've never considered it before, but now that you bring it up I think that a person who works more than 40hrs a week ought to be taxed differently (at a lower rate) on their additional worked hours. The tax system only looks at total earnings, and I think it would be farier to take into consideration that someone might be working a second job and that it would not be fair to increase their taxes because of that.

I would not, in principle, be opposed to such a scheme if it did not promise, as I see it, a number of potent problems. The most immediate one is that there is no way I can see by which you could reliably determine how to count the money made by a salaried worker. Secondly, if we are to buy the popular economic argument often cited by conservatives/neo-liberals that higher taxes leads to less incentive to work, then conversely lower taxes must mean more incentive to work; the problem being that too much overwork can very bad for health. Taxing people less specifically on overtime may create an illusion that there is more to gain for working those extra hours than is really worth it.

( P.S. I have returned to curse you all for another Summer! Muahaha... haha... ha... Err... )

[bloodyminded]

I would not, in principle, be opposed to such a scheme if it did not promise, as I see it, a number of potent problems. The most immediate one is that there is no way I can see by which you could reliably determine how to count the money made by a salaried worker. Secondly, if we are to buy the popular economic argument often cited by conservatives/neo-liberals that higher taxes leads to less incentive to work, then conversely lower taxes must mean more incentive to work; the problem being that too much overwork can very bad for health. Taxing people less specifically on overtime may create an illusion that there is more to gain for working those extra hours than is really worth it.

( P.S. I have returned to curse you all for another Summer! Muahaha... haha... ha... Err... )

True...and by extension, according to the lower tax=incentive theory...those who pay the lowest (or zero) taxes must be working harder than everybody else.

[August1991]

When you first mentioned this I thought you were being sarcastic or making a joke. However you've repeated it a number of times now. Are you actually seriously promoting this "idea"?

Bonam, if you can believe it, your question has troubled me (in a fun way) for the past few days.

Do I suggest that we impose a special tax on blue-eyed people? No. Nevertheless, we grant people over 65 a special personal income tax exemption. IOW, our tax system already has (many) bizarre forms of discrimination. So in effect now, we tax taller, beautiful, talented people more because taller, beautiful, talented people tend to have higher incomes.

When it comes to height, every inch counts--in fact, in the workplace, each inch above average may be worth $789 more per year, according to a study in the Journal of Applied Psychology (Vol. 89, No. 3).

Link

My understanding is that this applies equally to men and women.